(BBC 2, 2003)
This documentary about the new money of Russian oligarchs flowing into a growing Moscow property boom made a deep impression on me when I first saw it back in 2004. I'm not sure why but I remembered it for years afterwards, particularly for the gaudy bling of one oligarch's mansion that had enough gold and crimson in it to make your eyes bleed. I could never find the footage ever again but just recently re-discovered it on YouTube and I don't want to lose it again so am posting it up here on the blog.
When I visited Moscow in 2010, signs of the property boom were still in evidence - signs on buildings advertising 'English-style apartments!' made us laugh as 'English-style' does not have any cachet to it for us. We joked about a property developer being honest for once, admitting that his apartments have paper-thin walls, tiny rooms and yet still cost a fortune. By 2010, however, the New Russians' money was a little less new. The city seemed to have settled into itself and there was more of a stable, middle-class than in the earlier years of oligarchs and mafia killings. This documentary is from 2003 so it marks the transition for the Wild East era of the 1990s to the more stable Putin era today.
No comments:
Post a Comment